Wednesday, September 24, 2008

There are different ways that you can schedule your marketing to ensure that you are doing it consistently and as easily as possible. What appeals to you depends mainly on the level of detail and structure you like to have. One person's organized is another's straight-jacket!

Some people like to keep their schedule more general by designating a theme of activities for each day. For example:

Monday is communication day - catch up on emails; return phone calls; meet with staff; post on Facebook, online forums and other people's blogs

Wednesday is writing day - write content for ezine, blog, teleseminar, email marketing, sales page and website content
Thursday is creative day - research new opportunities for affiliates, partners, joint ventures; think of ideas for new products and services; draft outline for workshop you want to give

Friday is administration day - fine-tune schedule and to-do list for next week; file and clean up desk and office space; back up computer; read magazines and ezines

Other people like to divide their day up into different segments. For instance, they may write in the mornings from 9 - 11am, do email until noon, do some reading and brainstorming until 1:30pm, and then spend the rest of the afternoon on client specific activities.

Another way to set up your schedule is to build it around your reoccurring marketing activities and then fill in the spaces with other stuff. For example, every Tuesday morning may be for writing your weekly ezine and 2 new articles for submission. Thursday afternoon is slotted for a weekly teleseminar, Monday morning is devoted to email and every Friday morning you write 3 new blog postings. Client appointments are fit in wherever it's convenient for both parties.

Still others may determine their schedule by the type of marketing tactic:

Wednesday - sales (offer a promotion; send out email about a new product; summer sale)

Thursday - clients (appointments with clients; write weekly exercise and send to mastermind group; create a survey to send out to new clients)
Friday - free day (whatever comes up and whatever you want to do!)

Whichever way that you create and run your marketing schedule, remember to do it consistently! Your schedule is a living, breathing part of your marketing strategies so pay attention to it and make changes and additions as necessary.

If you have a marketing schedule you're already miles ahead of many small business owners, and you're well on your way to growing a successful business!

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Jody Gabourie, The Small Business Marketing Coach, teaches simple, innovative and powerful marketing strategies to help business owners find and keep their most profitable clients. To learn more about how she can help you take your business to the next level, and to sign up for her FREE special report, ezine and articles, visit her site at www.JodyGabourieMarketingCoach.com

Saturday, April 12, 2008

These words of wisdom can be applied to Internet marketing and Online advertising directly. If you are spending $300.00 or $3000.00 per month, or more, on Google AdWords Pay-Per-Click Ads and other online banner advertising, and not investing a single dime on your Internet marketing efforts, you are hurting your business in the long run. Building a quality website, with properly optimized content, and developing a marketing message that defines who you are, are strategic keys to Web success.

So, is marketing just another word for advertising?

This is perhaps the most common marketing myth and must be debunked right away if you have any hope of accomplishing your business goals.

A belief in this myth necessitates a view of marketing as a tactical function rather than the series of cross-functional processes, approaches and activities that it really is. Yes, advertising (marketing communications) is an essential component of your overall marketing plan, but it is not THE plan — and ideally should account for only 1-2% of your entire marketing efforts.

If you devote all of your attention and efforts on advertising activities (e.g. ad copy, sales channels, websites, media, etc.) you're putting the cart before the horse and are missing critical issues that may be having a negative impact on your business.

Advertising should never be substituted for the marketing process as a whole. No amount of advertising is going to make up for shoddy workmanship, rude employees or an unpleasant customer experience. It's like building a house of cards, it may hold up for a little while, but it most certainly will come tumbling down.

You've heard of the "domino effect", yes? If all of the dominoes are set up correctly then one push and they will all fall into place, achieving the expected result. It all begins with that first domino, it sets up the chain reaction for all the rest. Moreover, if any of the others are out of place the ones after that will not drop. This common, but vivid analogy clearly demonstrates how one element can significantly alter results.

Marketing Strategies And Tactics

The marketing function can be broken down into two distinct parts, Strategies and Tactics. Strategic marketing defines who you are, It spells out how you differ from your competitors so that your prospects and customers can make wise choices. Additionally, it serves as the working foundation for your entire company. It is the content of your marketing message; what you say, how you say it, and who you say it to.

Tactical marketing (Advertising, Promotions, Sales Materials, etc.) involves the communication of your strategic plan. In other words, it is the vehicle(s) for delivering your message.

Strategies and tactics will be discussed in much greater detail in Chapters Three through Seven.

Bottom line: You cannot advertise your way to success. If you choose to tell the public how great you are, make yourself great first.

The quickest way to kill a bad product, or business, is to advertise it.

Classic Symptoms of a Myth #1 Believer

They,

Ignore essential research, analysis, and planning.
Act like a "show horse" instead of a "plow horse".
Think/Say things like, "advertising works" or "you can make a fortune on the Internet".
Don't believe in giving anything away for free.

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Copyright 2008 Mary Eule

Mary Eule specializes in helping small and medium-sized businesses get and keep profitable customers. Formerly a Fortune 500 marketing executive; founder of two successful small businesses and award-winning speaker, Ms. Eule is President of Strategic Marketing Advisors, LLC. and co-author of a new book, "Marketing: What it Really Means and How to Make it Work for Your Business". She holds a master degree in marketing from Johns Hopkins University. Log onto www.StrategicMarketingAdvisors.com for free articles, newsletter and helpful tools, tips and templates.

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Implement a strategic marketing plan online. Professional marketing service from Professional Web Services can help your company get established online. Get your business found in the search engine results and start gaining more sales for your business. Contact Professional Web Services today.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Quite often small business owners will ask me to reveal the most powerful marketing strategy I have seen. I can say without hesitation that the most powerful marketing strategy has little to do with advertising, direct mail, web sites, referrals or blogs.

No, before any of those things will really have any impact on your business you've got to uncover and communicate a way in which your business is different from every other business that says they do what you do. You've got to get out of the commodity business. You've got to stake your claim on a simple idea or position in the mind of our prospective clients.

Here's what I mean. I have a client that provides custom computer programming. Essentially, they use programming languages to build custom applications for businesses. What they do is often hard to explain and even harder to put a price on, making it difficult for a prospective client to compare different companies. As a way to differentiate their business, they have begun to offer something they call Perfect Coaching. Perfect Coaching is a unique blend of training and programming and, here's the key, no one else in their business is offering anything like it. Prospects like the sound of it and are asking to know more. It's too early to tell but I suspect this point of difference will open a lot of doors for them.

Ways to differentiate

Let's look at a number of tried and true ways to claim a unique point of difference.

Product – Can you offer a product that is so unique or even trendy that your business is associated with that offering? Or, can you extend a product and offer a valuable service to make the product more useful to the customer.

Service – Same goes for a service. Many times this can be the packaging of a service as a product. Consulting is often delivered on an hourly basis. Packaging a consulting engagement based on an outcome, with defined deliverables and fixed package price is a very effective way to differentiate a service offering. Don't forget to give the service a powerful name!

Market Niche – Carve out an industry or two and become the most dominant player serving that industry. A really nice bonus to this approach is you can usually raise your prices dramatically when you specialize in this manner.

Offer – Can you become known by an offer you make? I know an accountant that offer his tax preparation clients a 100% refund on their preparation fee when they refer four new clients. They are the 100% refund tax guys.
Solve a Problem – Is there something that prospects in your market fear or seem to believe is universal for what you do? If so, focus on communicating how you have the answer. Painless dentistry for example. I know a remodeling contractor who found that what his clients appreciated the most was the way his crews cleaned up at the end of the day. He began to promote the fact that he owned more ShopVacs then any other remodeling contractor on the planet.

Message of Value – Many times there are things that you do that don't get communicated. Extra that you provide or services you think should be included. Your positioning might just rest in more effectively communicating what you do. I know an office furniture dealer that has adopted the message – We Make Your Business More Valuable – to communicate all the things they bring to the party. Now, everything they do is focused on delivering on that statement. Everyone else in the industry sells furniture.

Unique habit – I know a financial planner who has his client's car detailed right out in his parking lot when they come in for their annual review. They can't help but rave to their friends about this unique touch.

Guarantee – Can you offer a guarantee so strong that no one else in your industry would dream of doing it. This one frightens some people but, you probably guarantee your work anyway, you just don't say so. Come out and boldly announce that you guarantee results and watch what happens!

Customer Service – Everyone knows the story of over the top customer service provided by Nordstrom's Create your own over the top customer response system and word of mouth advertising will flow liberally. One of the greatest ways to kick this off is to over deliver on your first customer contact. Give them something more than you promised, give them a gift, give them a related service for free.

Against the competition – Many times you can create your category niche by looking for holes in the offerings of your competitors. If every one in industry fails to address a certain problem, boldly grab on to solving that problem and use your competition as the point of difference.

Clues to uncovering your difference

Look at your current clients. What common elements exist among your best clients? Interview your clients. See if they can tell you why they chose to work with, why they stay, why they refer? Study your competitors more closely. What do they do that you could do better, what don't they offer they you could, how do they position themselves?

Communicate the difference

Once you find your chosen strategy or combination of strategies to differentiate your business, all of your advertising and promotion should be centered around shouting about that difference.

Commit to it, stay at it and resist the temptation to wander off in the next new direction. Building a brand, and that's what I'm talking about, takes time and patience. The payoff, however, is what differentiates the winners from the losers in this big marketing game.

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John Jantsch is a marketing consultant based in Kansas City, Mo. He writes frequently on real world small business marketing tactics and is the creator of "Duct Tape Marketing" a turn-key small business marketing system. Check out his blogs at www.DuctTapeMarketing.com/weblog.php and www.BloggingBusiness.com

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